


Air and Angels

by Kerosene



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Character study through porn, Everyone wants the same thing but words are hard and feelings are harder, F/M, How do you tell your boyfriend that you want to jump his bones?, How do you tell your girlfriend that you want to take her to bed?, Musings on a relationship, Who thought a hiatus was a good idea anyway?, especially when your boyfriend was tortured and abused?, processing trauma/abuse, when you’re also managing your traumatic past?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-01 02:30:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12695280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerosene/pseuds/Kerosene
Summary: Knowing what you want isn’t the same as knowing how to ask for it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Vast thanks to MsWyrr for the awesome beta, and to lieutenant-ash-tyler for letting me ask stupid questions. 
> 
> Chapter 1 has been revised.

He'd been talking to Dr Ionë, Ship's Counsellor, about sex a lot lately. The topic is bound up in everything they try and work through. So he talks about sex, and about what had happened during his captivity, sex and his feelings of shame and pollution, sex and his sense of self, sex and his feelings about his body. About Michael.

And thank god for the inviolable patient-doctor confidentiality that meant all his secrets, great and small, would never go beyond the walls of the counsellor's office, no matter what captains and admirals may command. A spaceship is not a large space, and fresh gossip is a tachyon - he can handle scuttlebutt about how he took out 16 Klingons and a targ in hand to hand during the escape, but just the idea of anyone else knowing these particular secrets, hearing them whispered behind his back makes him ill beyond words. ‘Hey, there’s Ash Tyler, he fucked his way out of Klingon prison and into a promotion!’ Ionë’s been doing a lot of work on that particular thought pattern. Is still doing a lot of work, letting him talk unfettered, taking the pressure off his facade, and he really appreciates that about their sessions. He has an image to keep up - amazingly well balanced and all that.

As a result of all that work, intellectually, he knows the difference between then and now. Between two hundred and twenty seven days of torture, and a few months of kissing and closeness. Between being drugged and used, and between gentle exploration. He thinks his emotional reasoning is probably caught up too. Klingons don’t kiss.

And okay, Ionë thinks he's rushing things, even before but especially after the battle with the Ship of the Dead and the crazy time that followed, throwing himself into a relationship without enough processing in order to put distance between then and now. Maybe that's true (probably that's true), but Michael is fascinating, beautiful. She has a mind like a finely honed razor blade, but doesn’t cut him. He can honestly say that If they’d met at the best of times, he'd still be drawn to her. He's in this for the long-term, not just while they’re posted together.

But the reptilian hindbrain doesn’t care about logic, about intellectual understanding, just avoidance, and it’s not like he doesn’t still have waking nightmares about the most innocuous things more than he cares to admit, so perhaps moving their relationship to a new level is unwise. And it’s not like Michael has the practical experience to lead him through this should he have a freak out. Blind leading the shell-shocked.

On the other hand, his other hand has been quite busy with thoughts of Michael lately. His quarters on Discovery are bright and clean, cool and dry, with a lock only he controls - the opposite of the filthy, humid prison cell or L’Rell's vile rooms that smelled of stale sweat and fresh blood. It didn’t take long for his quarters to become in his mind a safe, calming space. Inviting Michael in, mentally and physically, was only sensible.

He wants his body back. He wants sex to go back to being about pleasure, joy, closeness, love. Not... whatever that had been. If he's still capable of interpreting signals correctly, then he's pretty sure Michael wants more than their slow pace allows.

 

* * *

 

 

Tilly persists in calling her visits with Ash 'dates'. This is patently illogical. A date is something... else. The kind of thing that exists in melodramatic holos, and is appreciated by the kind of people who enjoy parties.

She and Ash merely enjoy spending time in each other's company. She has been teaching him some aspects of Vulcan meditation. He's been drilling her in hand to hand (stop laughing Tilly, not everything is a double-entendre). It’s been educational to put her Suus Mahna against the broader, more eclectic styles he has been trained in, and the first time he used one of her moves against her, a dodge that had them both off balance before falling tangled, laughing onto the mats is a memory she’ll treasure. They review the bouts afterwards, and the conversation veers from specific moves to almost anything else - their childhoods, their lives, sharing their favourite books and vids and music. She has a reading list he’s prepared for her, two centuries of authors she’d missed on Vulcan - Bester, Pratchett, Okorafor, Leckie, Ito, Fernandez, Zhang, Pryslak...

Also, the kissing. Their first kiss was lost to the time loops, but they’ve been making up for that since. Touch is important for psychological health, and they can spend hours just being close to one another, kissing, breathing together, hand in hand. No pressure, no expectations. Safe and relaxed, at peace. It’s calming, centering, and not a little frustrating.

It’s not that she's ignorant. It’s just that for all her education, she doesn’t know how to move forward. Zenoanthropology Studies at the Vulcan Science Academy doesn’t cover the practicalities of even simple human mating rituals. Nor Vulcan ones, and perhaps that’s part of the problem. She's caught between worlds, grew up in a culture where sex was linked inextricably to the shameful loss of self that Pon Farr presents - and her physiology doesn’t work that way. Coupled with Ash's trauma, she's lost without a path. There was no need to research this on the Shenzhou, no viable opportunities worth exploring.

The logical way to progress would be to experiment. If Ash is open to experimentation, at least.


	2. Chapter 2

The classics are classics for a reason and provide a bulwark against the rising tide of his anxiety. He cues up a vid, an Andorian adventure-romance about a dashing archeologist. Interesting enough to watch, not something he cares about missing. Rearranges his bed into a couch rather more comfortable than his actual couch. Grabs a bottle of Risan synth from the replicator.

Cleans up, checks their position and begins to move through Isha prayers, feeling once again like a fraud for his very obviously conflicting motivations, that he’s consciously halfassing his obligations. Nevertheless, the prayers calm his mind, puts peace in his heart. It’s only a date nerves freakout, not a brewing PTSD trip, and that awareness is cheerfully mocking in its relative scale, lets him wait calmly. This is not a priority for anxiety.

When Michael arrives, she's sucking on a vividly pink-striped lollipop, and it’s an image that’s immediately seared on his memory, replacing such inconsequential knowledge as 'language' and 'month four'.

“Stamets,” she explains with a micro-shrug, holding out another round-headed lollipop for him, which he declines with a wave, “he’s having a good day, and has been experimenting with replicator coding. He says it’s flavoured with _Lactarius camphoratus_ , but Tilly insists it’s just bad maple syrup.”

Ash shakes his head to restore some processing power. “And you?”

“I do not think mushroom flavoured candy will be as great a success as the lieutenant hopes.”

He laughs at that and shows her in, watches as she settles herself before joining her, rearranging their position so that he's leaning against the wall at the head of his bed, and she's leaning against him. There's a formally elegant Vulcan name for the position in paired meditation, something about breathing together hearts in sequence, but call a spade a spade, it's a hug. And he's always been a huggy guy. Getting that back, even if just in this small and controlled way, was a little breakthrough for him. He can hold Michael against him, breathe in the warm scent of her hair, press a kiss to her temple and feel safe. This isn’t a do or die situation. If he doesn’t ask for more, the worst that will happen is that she'll fall asleep in his arms again and that his heart will hitch for the trust she shows. She knows his nightmares and is still here.

"How's training going?" She asks, waving the lollipop distractingly, settling back so her head rests comfortably against his shoulder.

"Eh, not as well as I’d like - too many people who must have just scraped through phaser training," he replies, and that’s him being generous. Too many who handle their phaser like either a laser-pointer or a decomposing sludge rat. If the Discovery is invaded as the Yeager was, he intends to give his new crew a more than fighting chance.

"Discovery is meant to be a science ship, not exploration - most weren’t expecting to need advanced phaser training. You have a plan?" Michael sounds thoughtful, logical, and he appreciates that she assumes he not only has a plan but is already putting it into action. He does have a plan. It’s not a training regime you’d find in any of Starfleet's manuals, but this is the _Discovery_. There's not much that happens aboard that follows Starfleet directives.

"There’s a game we played on my first ship, but you need a lot of space to play it, and it’s not exactly safe. It’s kind of like phaser volleyball - you need a reactive disk, and two teams with their phasers set to stun."

"I can see why you'd say it’s not safe" he can _hear_ the raised eyebrow, and feels a bloom of warmth in his heart. Not just for the critique, though he appreciated that - if her Vulcan logic picks that as the first point of failure to notice, he's a lot more confident in getting his proposal past the rest of the senior staff - but for the familiarity and friendliness of it all.

"Yeah, the medics weren’t keen, but we improved our scores quickly, more than just shooting at the range - I figure it’ll do the same for the crew. I’ll put the proposal to the captain at our next catchup, see if I can requisition an empty cargo bay."

She drops the finished stick of her lollipop in the trash and leans over to pour a glass for each of them as he starts the vid. It begins with an explosion, extended chase sequence, four more explosions and a desperate lunge to safety across a disintegrating rope bridge. Michael relaxes into his arms, and begins to critique the archeologist's methodology - apparently dynamite is not a recognised excavation tool. He's yet to meet a single person from science section who can sit through a film without offering a running commentary, and at Tilly's weekly vid night, science section can make it a problem to hear the plot over the objections to it. It’s part of their ritual now and a deciding factor in which vids to watch.

That there‘s a them to have a ritual in amongst everything they have been through and are still going through is a little staggering in and of itself, and it’s easier to bury his face in the short, soft coils of her hair than try and process it right now. Michael has hold of one of his hands, keeping it on the waistband of her uniform pants, right where the hem of her t-shirt has ridden up to reveal warm brown skin. It’s no stretch to gently stroke her skin with his thumb and listen to the offences against archeozenoanthropology. Michael's breath hitches, once, but she doesn’t stop her comments, nor move his hand away. She does shift in a way which reveals more skin, tilts her head so her neck is more accessible to him.

It’s no strain to reach down and begin kissing her neck. That wins him more than a single hitched breath, more of a moan. This, they’ve done before, and so he's confident in continuing. He hopes they can get through an off-shift without a black alert or some other emergency that requires one or both of them on the bridge, without his brain rebelling.

It’s Michael who makes the next move, slipping his hand intentionally under her shirt. It’s perhaps not much, but it’s also a pretty clear signal. Her skin is velvet smooth over toned muscle that tightens as he slowly explores her body, fingertips moving inch by inch. Her breath doesn’t stutter as he moves higher, it’s very firmly under her control - obviously so when he reaches the band of her bra, the kind of control that's hard fought for. It’s more than a little complimentary, in the lexicon of his pre-capture days, and that's a memory which makes him press a smile against her neck before moving up to tease at her ear. Ionë's chiming voice rings in his mind to point out the uncomplicated and pleasurable memory, but he is _busy_ here. Michael is shivering as he teases her, and a quick glance shows that she's biting her lip, a high flush on her cheeks.

"You okay?" He asks, and her nod is quick and decisive, as she presses back against him and quickly flicks open her bra's front clasps. He takes the invitation, moves his hands again to cup her breasts, move the sleek fabric of her bra aside. He takes his time to relish this moment, the soft weight and subtle swell, to memorise just how perfect she feels against his rough and scarred hands. He plays his fingers over newly revealed skin, lingers in drawing little circles that win him little gasps, discovering where she’s most sensitive, how she responds when he teases her nipples - already drawn tight and pebbled, she seems to appreciate it as he palms them, pinches lightly and rolls them between his fingers, her gasps deepening to moans as she presses back against his chest, not quite writhing, but close enough. He could happily spend hours like this, cataloguing every little move and response, wanting to know what she likes, loves, wants.

His traitorous brain throws up an image of L’Rell, and his despairing inventory of what got the least bad response. It's poison, but - Michael is an antidote. She feels different, smells different, looks different. He forces his eyes open, anchors himself in the sensory awareness of the regulation bedding, the hum of the bulkhead, the beautiful woman vulnerable in his arms and the feeling of her body pressed against him, loses himself instead in this better world.

"You?" Her voice breaks through his reverie - he’d been so absorbed in skin and touch and the softness of her breasts, the human firmness of her toned muscles. There's a part of his mind that's forever an overconfident and underexperienced 14 year old boy that's laughing at him for being so far gone when he hasn’t even got her top off yet.

He's learnt a lot since then.

"I’m good," and he is, truly. He might still be shadowed, but he can see where the light is.

* * *

 

 

His hands are warm, long fingers moving over her body, floating kisses on her neck - she feels like she's melting, electric, breathless. The way he touches her is a blessing.

It’s strange and wonderful - she hadn’t realised quite how much. It explains a lot about the behaviours she has observed in her shipmates.

"Are we sure about this?" She doesn’t mean to speak. For herself, the only thing she wants more than for him to continue is to switch positions, to explore him. Or to move his hands lower. Her uniform is restrictive, suddenly too rough, an irritation. This is illogical, of course the fabric has not changed, it is merely the sensitisation of her nerves and confusing signals. Nevertheless.

Ash stops immediately, pulls his hands away, and a part of her mind howls for the loss of contact. She wants to grab at him, drag him back to her, re-enter that cocoon of delicious closeness. Instead, she stills her hands, half-turns so she can see his face which is oddly still. Walled off

Did he think she’d spoken up because she didn’t want what he was doing? She can, must, fix this. "I am." She must speak honestly "I... want to see where tonight goes. I don’t - I do not wish to get carried away and push you into something you’re not ready for." He has, at least, started breathing again. "Not that I think that you’re incapable of making that decision for yourself, or telling me if that were the case," she is rambling, she is _rambling_ , "but I suggest we make our intentions clear if we are to avoid unpleasant" poor word choice, an embarrassment, surely she’s not this tongue tied? "associations, which may mar the experience" as though he were a gallery exhibit to be considered, not Ash Tyler, and all that he encompassed.

"You get really Vulcan when you're nervous." There’s a ghost of a smile back in his voice, perhaps even a real one, not his triple-reinforced facade, and such a response deserves only a human reaction. Looking over her shoulder, she borrows a move from Dr. Culber dealing with a truculent Stamets, and sticks her tongue out at him.

That causes him to laugh, hug her tightly and press a kiss to her temple. "Turn around?" he asks, voice rough. Shifting over so that she sits half-way down the bed, facing him with legs crossed, is not an especially elegant move, and she feels cold away from the circle of his arms. Takes his hands in hers to stop her pulling at the sheets.

"I want you. I guess - I don’t think that’s a surprise?" His face when he looks up from his hands is so open, so raw, "I don’t have a game plan, though"

"No plan survives first contact."

"And strategy is expediency, we had the same training manuals. But you're not the enemy."

"And there's no utility in turning me into a mission to be achieved at any cost." She doesn’t mean the sharpness in her tone, but equally, she’s not happy to be reduced to a conquest, a milestone. This isn’t just about him.

"I guess." Ash's heavy sigh sounds frustrated, rather than upset. "I know what I want, and I know how I’d have done this before. But I feel boobytrapped. Every time anyone asks me how I am, it’s a reminder of why they’re asking, and I just want to fucking _forget_ ," he sounds frustrated and vehement, and her analytical mind kicks in with the inadvisability of ignoring a problem and hoping it gets better on its own - but a relentless focus on trauma is similarly unhelpful. She is not his therapist. So. If plans are unhelpful, and strategies cause stumbling, perhaps instinct and exploration offers a better route. The idea scares her - even the smallest experiment has a hypothesis and exploration is more effective when it is strategic. On the other hand, Alice is through the looking glass, and some illogical approaches can be the most logical way to behave.

"Perhaps we focus on now, and forget the strategies?" She pauses, certain and uncertain by turns. "I need you to tell me if I do anything you don’t want, though."

"Same - you'll tell me too, right?" he asks. She nods, in easy agreement, and they sit quietly for a second, processing. Then, he looks up and the look he gives her makes him seem a decade younger, a sly grin through floppy hair that sets her pulse racing. "So...” he says, drawing the word out and she already knows she’ll agree to whatever he wants “Wanna take your shirt off?"

She laughs easily. “Only if you do too," she says, her shirt already halfway over her head

From there, it’s not much to lie down together, face to face, and to let her hands explore him, sinking into that soft zone of kisses and hands and closeness. She doesn’t avoid his scars, deliberate deep injuries too long lasting for the regenerator to be effective, but doesn’t pay them particular attention either. It’s an instinctive move to unbuckle her pants and push them off her hips along with her underwear - the position makes it awkward, but the freedom is worth it, especially when he follows her example.

It’s a curious intimacy, nudity. She had expected it to feel more vulnerable, more illicit. But of course, that’s an illogical assumption. The intimacy of the mind is far more potent than mere bodies, and they’ve not hesitated from baring their thoughts.

One major difference between intimacy of the mind and intimacy of the body is the erection pressing into her leg.

"May I?" She asks, running her hand down his side. At his nod, she slides her hand further, wraps her fingers around him. As she begins to stoke, Ash lets out a soft sigh. The angle's not good and her wrist will start to hurt shortly, but the tension in his face looks like good tension. It’s a little easier when Ash rolls onto his back, easier still to place another kiss on his chest, to follow the trail of hair with more kisses and quick flicks of her tongue, careful still not to loom over him. "I'd like to-"

"Sure." He pushes himself up to rest on his elbows.

He smells of ship soap, ozone and vanilla, and his skin feels like shorn velvet. She has no idea how to proceed. Keeping her hand moving slowly, she licked at the head, flat of her tongue dragging across the glans, capturing a little droplet of salty-sour precum as she did. Ash gasped, and a quick look didn’t suggest any displeasure. From there it was natural to progress to the shaft, laving long stripes from base to tip.

"What do you like?"

"Can you... can you take it in your mouth? Go slow?"

She does, though she's unsure about the technicalities. He’s wider than she'd presumed he would be, and has to open her jaw wide, pulling her lips back to cover teeth, tongue pressing, flicking against him as she takes him into her mouth. Has him pressed against her throat, and it’s an awkward feeling, not quite uncomfortable but not exactly pleasurable. She begins to pull back and move down again. Ash seems to approve, little groans escaping his mouth, fingers grasping against the bedsheets. It’s an unconscious action to reach out and take his hand into hers, squeeze tightly and look up at him. He meets her eyes, watches as she sinks down again and again and again, a deep moan on his lips.

"Oh-! Michael, come up here."

She responds quickly, moving gracelessly. Her skin feels too small, she’s breathless and human as he tugs at her shoulder, drags her to him and crashes his lips into hers.

 

* * *

 

His heart feels as though it’ll burst, watching her move back up the bed. She’s slinky, beautiful, and focused exclusively on him - her partner, not her prey. He pulls her to him, not his most skilled moment, but one spurred by true need to feel her against him, to kiss her again. He wants to go down on her, but - no. Next time.

Instead, he snakes his arm down between them, between her legs. "Can I?"

She nods, rolls onto her back. Tense, slightly.

He’s always been good with his hands, and it is a delight to watch her face as he goes to work. She's already wet, feels gloriously slick and hot as he dances his fingers along her lips, ghosting over her clit. He ups the pressure a little, draws random little patterns and loves to feel her writhe in response. She's so expressive as he moves his fingers quicker and with more confidence, and he’s not sure that he’s ever heard a sound as good as her little gasps. There's no better view than the way she bites her lip as he teases at her entrance with the flat pads of his fingers, eyes flashing open and squeezing shut as he teases her clit with his thumb, skin flushed and glowing, pressing herself closer and closer to him with unconscious movements. She feels amazing, and he can’t help but draw it out, listen as her moans heighten in pitch before slowing down, backing off and letting her settle again. He wants this to be good.

 

"More, please?" She takes hold of his hand and presses him against her harder, lower. It’s a welcome invitation, and he kisses her deeply as he slides a finger inside, two, thumb still working at her clit, a little more pressure. He's ignoring his own wants and dancing on the edge of pleasure/pain in a good way, Michael taking up all of his concentration. She's tensing up again, writhing, seeking, pushing against his hand, and the noises she's making as he crooks his fingers - little gasps, whines and mewls, human noises that ask for more - she’s incandescent, open and beautiful. Leaning over to lave at a nipple with his tongue wins him an amazingly heady moan that encourages him to suck harder. He doesn’t even get a chance for paralysis, for insecurity and past terror to stage an ambush before he feels her orgasm hit, and she's chanting out his name, gasping and high in a way that's doing amazing things to his ego and terrible things to his own ability to hold out. She is here in his arms, and Michael smells of vanilla, oceans and amber, an anchor to reality that’s quivering in the aftermath, a little whine of displeasure when he takes his hand away.

He holds her close, and she buries her face against his neck and breathes deeply, already collecting the ragged edges, soft and relaxed in her lassitude. She’s glowing, brown skin beautifully flushed and he aches, heart and body.

"We good?" He asks, mainly to hear her speak.

"Mm," she sighs. She’s like a cat with a bucket of cream, and he allows himself a moment to feel very smug. There’s probably a clinically sterile psychological worksheet waiting for him to catalogue his reactions, but that’s a problem that Future Ash can deal with.

He’s been resolutely ignoring his dick, but that thrumming, building energy is becoming more and more insistent. He feels comfortable, safe, solid. Michael is grinning happily, and the look in her eyes is - well.

It’s amazing how much can be communicated in a single glance. She pulls him toward her for a deep, searing kiss as he moves between her legs, breaks the kiss with a groan as he _pushes_ -

They both go still, just for a moment, adjusting. Start to move, and he has to gasp with the glorious sensation of her, as his focus narrows to nothing more than the two of them, wet heat and joy in his heart as she rocks against him, encouraging him on. It’s not fast - he wants to go long and deep, luxurious and relentless, one hand holding him up as the other encourages her to lift her legs up and she presses back, just a little deeper, a little harder, a little more impatient. The angle is awkward, he should rise up if he wants to do this properly, but he can run his hand between them, skirting over her stomach to press his thumb against her clit, a little more friction for her that wins him a sonata of gasps and sighs. Her own hand joins his, and he moves out of the way, lets her take over, needs both arms to hold him up because he’s losing his rhythm, getting close, but he wants to see her, wants to overwrite every possible neuron with the image of Michael, her head thrown back and the long line of her neck as she shudders and tenses around him, sensory overload even before she meets his eyes, and his own orgasm takes him, electric whiteout.

 

* * *

 

It takes her a long time to come down from that high, dizzy with satiation. But breath by breath, she comes back to herself, pulls Ash close to feel his racing heart slow to a steady rate and his smile against her cheek. It’s a cruel loss when he pulls out, moves to the side to lie on his back, but there’s no tension evident in his face and it’s easy enough to roll over and pillow her head on his shoulder for a hug, laugh as he blows an errant curl out of the way. Logically, they really should go clean up, but it seems equally rational to stay here and enjoy each other’s presence. The path of least resistance dictates staying here at least a little longer.

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

He has nightmares again, because of course he does. But Michael doesn’t flinch, strokes his back as he dry heaves, bundles them both into the shower to rinse off, holds him close as they fall back to sleep. There have been worse nights.


End file.
